If 6 Was 9

 

Tonight I watched the film Donnie Darko.

Good gravy.

What a trip.  Between the clear tubular trails emitted from the solar plexus, to the woman who can't stop looking into her mailbox, and of course, Frank the Rabbit, I am utterly at a loss for words.

At least for a few seconds.  Now that it's sunk in, I'm prepared to start babbling as is germane to my persona.

SPOILER ALERTS!!!!!!  If you want to watch this movie and haven't seen it, watch it before reading this.  I'm interested to see what your thoughts are without any outer influence.  And I do recommend watching it.  I already am planning on watching it a second time sometime soon because each time I watch a movie, I get it more and more.  And this film is the first one that I wanted to watch again for the sole purpose of enjoying that sort of gradual enlightenment or periodic understanding.

Now that you've been warned:  My review and thoughts.  Donnie Darko, if I were to summarize greatly, is an investigation into the question of "What If?"  Every sequence, or nearly so, has a part that either makes absolutely no sense - with comedic effect or otherwise - or makes you seriously wonder WHY a director would choose to do something a certain way.  Certainly there must be a purpose?  Or is there no purpose to some of the choices made in the film?  This seems absurd, but would be an ironic parallel that not many people would pick up on, connected to the short story in the movie, "The Destructors", which is about a gang who have no motives other than to defy the norm.  Upon discovering enormous amounts of cash in an old man's house, the characters of the short story do not take it; they burn it.  Do the filmmakers proverbially "burn cash" when they add seemingly random things to the movie, thoroughly bemused when people seek purpose in the nebulosity?  So maybe the director is asking us "What if a movie had things for no reason, as opposed to everything we've been taught to seek in the arts?"

The largest "what if?" in this movie is the Wizard of Oz-like film gimmick where the end rewinds back to before everything began, revealing that it was all a dream, or in this case just a parallel sequence of events.  In the beginning, Donnie evades death by sleepwalking to a golf course where he meets Frank, an enormous bunny with a face more terrifying than the thought of Nancy Pelosi in a bathing suit.  Speaking in a normal voice laced with computerized twinges and groans, Frank beckons Donnie "closer. closer."  Upon arriving, he tells him when the world will end: in 28 days, 6 hours, some-odd minutes, and 12 seconds.  Everything from then on centers around Donnie phasing in and out of normality, medication or depression-induced trips(he is suggested to be a paranoid schizophrenic), and slowly encountering Frank more, learning more about how the world will end, how Frank can exist, etc.

Now, on the first night, when being beckoned to the golf course, he avoids being killed by a random jet engine crashing through his roof.  No plane was traced.  It literally just fell out of the sky.  From this sleepwalk that ends up saving his life, along with other indubitably correlated events, Donnie begins to realize things happened for a reason.  He grapples with ideas of predestination, time travel to change your destiny, and time travel along your set destiny (aka, not able to change anything, just go forward or back like on a VCR).  By the end of the film has rolled around, he's got himself a pretty girl despite his overwhelming social quirks, and has enjoyed his last 28 days of life with, as far as we can tell, more joy than he's had in a long time.  Oh, with some trips of terror and vandalism/arson/destruction of property mixed in.


Hold the phone.  The film ends with - SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - (sorry, I hate things being spoiled, and would hate to be the blight of humanity who forgot to document his spoilage at the expense of a poor soul) Donnie laughing hysterically, then going to sleep...no sleepwalking.  Then, as the scene pans out just as it did when we see the jet engine crash in on Donnie's empty room, we realize what's coming.  Donnie's in his room.  The jet engine will soon be in his room, and it wasn't even invited.  Epitome of rude.  Regardless, Donnie needs to make like Beethoven and roll over.


He doesn't.  He dies.  And his girlfriend (or WAS in the other sequence of events, I'm not sure yet) comes riding past the house with the crane and police cars and fire trucks out front.  Stopping next to a little boy (who by the way plays the son of Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich, another great movie), she asks him what happened.  He explains.  He asks, "Did you know him?"  She pauses, and replies "No."  She then looks extremely contemplative, as if she DID know him.  Or something.  I have no clue.  Then the biggest "wait...what?!" moment in movie history, she waves at Donnie's mom who is barely crying and dragging on a yummy skag.  She waves back.  The little boy waves at his mom.  The film ends.


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That's what I felt like.  Anyhow, I've no clue if it was a dream, if Donnie discovered how to time travel as he'd tried to for the whole movie practically, or if something else crazy happened.  I intend on watching this bad boy again soon to investigate more.